Looking back at "Farming - Tell me all" i think we hijacked Temp traces thread a little at times, & i have thought for a while that we should have a thread for just odd chats that does'nt warrent a new thread each time? I thought "Chewing Straw" was what all country folk did when talking about nothing in particular, but my wife said its a male thing, should be "chatting over the back fence" so compromise title... To get started, i'll just report an unfortunate fire east of here last week started by a Brand New Header on 1st or 2nd days work!!! Investigation underway but have'nt heard outcome. We have no crop, but thought it was timely reminder, so got firefighter out and blasted all rubbish off tractor, mower, ute etc. My neighbour asked why I was worried, he recond the bearings on my gear were that worn that they would be "air cooled" - bit cruel i thought. My daughter had her car stolen in Perth last week, on our policy, & when talking to insurance rep he told me that there were 2 or 3 header fires in our region each year! I would have thought in this day & age this would'nt be that common!! Whats the score elsewhere?? On other fronts, only green feed now is the re-growth in the hay paddock, will be starting some sup feeding next week, i dont like to run the animals down too far, so recon its better to start earlier than later, & we will only just trickle a bit of grain out to get rumen ready for diet change. Have u finished harvest completely Goody, hows that gernination Mcg. Any moisture at all Heather? :wave: FE

Hi FE and allYes germination is happening...looking great especially where it has been burnt. Getting the Super on to it now is the big issue. We love Christmas so we will get that out of the way first. We have cloud cover at the moment and the forcast is for some rain. That would be perfect but will wait and see. Still feeding all the stock but a green tinge just seems to lift the spirit and give hope doesn't it. One of the other threads were talking about the back to back El'nino of 1942. They are convinced that we will experience that this time around, even suggested that when it starts to rain we should sell stock as we will be going straight bach into it. Not a good thought...talk about put fear into us...i hope they are wrong. Bad luck with the fires...it does make you orgainse things to prevent it happening but sometimes you just can't do everything. Only so many hours in a day unfortunately. Better go, on the way out for dinner at friends...waht a treat. Talk to you all soon i hope. :wave:

Hi FE yes header fires still happen all the time 2 weeks ago around here a contractor lost his new John deere to fire 5 hours on the clock , think it was an electrical fault in engine managment system or loose battery terminal, but she was stuffed.In normal years you get a few going up especially in things like lentils, they are real firestarters with fine powdery dust and heaps of static.

Heather i feel for you 91 days no rain. We had been 110 days until the week before last (1") and last week (3"). What do you do? How are you copeing? Do you have cattle? Thank you we had a lovely 'outing' last night, it is nice to get off the place for a while. Christmas will be at home as we have to stay with the calves. We usually go to friends on Boxing Day. They are not hand feeding calves so i am hoping they will come here. It is such a great time of year and i refuse to let the conditiond ruin it. What are you all doing for Christmas?Talk to you soon i hope :cheers:

Being part of the farming fraterinity here on the WZ forums I thought I'd better introduce myself-I'm Tony Peterson from the Killarney region in QLD and we operate a beef cattle operation on two aggregations in the district. We live on 80 acres of mostly cultivation at Killarney (forage oats for finishing cattle in the winter), and about 1600 acres in The Head valley in the Great Dividing Range. The Murray Darling river system begins just above us in the hills and flows through our place, down to Killarney and then throughout the Darling Downs.

Our place is mostly made up of creek flats and drained swamp, with the country becoming more undulating as you go further away from the creek. All pasture growing is native-with varieties such as kikuya, paspalum, cocksfoot and ryegrass being the most common. Our carrying capacity is around the 400-450 head mark in a good season, but at the moment we are only running around 250 head due to the drought-the worst since the Petersons first came to the area in 1902!

Breed wise we mainly stick to the good old reliable Herefords, although we do have quite a few Santa Hereford X, Shorthorn and Shorthorn Limosin X. These are bought in as 6-8mth old weaners from the Casino store sales held in the autumn, and sold at about 3 years of age to the Jap Ox market.

I'm only 15 and take a great interest in farming and anything associated with it and would like to someday take over-but I would also like to make a career out of accounting or maybe business management. My plan is to just basically "play it by ear" and see what happens. Nothing is set in concrete yet.

BTW, have any of you had much to do with or own/owned any Chamberlain tractors? We have a 1967 Countryman 354 we use as a front end loader tractor and has been a great machine. I am a bit of a self confessed Chamberlain fan and wondered what some of you think about them. Any stories or info would be much appreciated.

Hi all, Finished harvest last monday, Barley averaged .76 of a tonne/ Ha and wheat 1 tonne/Ha On headers burning had one burnt near hear last week total melt down.Was a week before we could get the fire in the grain tank out. The new machines contain more electrial wiring to short out, more hydrolics to leak oil and fuel a fire once it starts . Run at higher speeds,and are closed in with guards and covers so they collect more chaff around moving parts and so you dont see any thing going wrong until it starts smoking.A few spots of rain this afternoon with red dust in it so must have been windy farther north.

The harvest here was like Thirstydirts just a pretend one, it started early then was all over in no time with people just wanting to forget about it. It is the way of farming that you look forward to the next yr... it is always going to be the one to pick you up again I have been winding back the farming FE so not doing too much of it now. I was telling a Vic poultry farmer this recently & he said with a wry smile "It took you a long time to wake up!" I am 51 you see so I laughed

Not much happening this way now with our farming untill the Autumn

If I do not catch all you nice people somewheres before hand may I extend to you now a Merry Xmas & a "very" prosperous All Year Long 2003! :wave:

mcg & everyone Finally had 10mm of rain last night It was wonderfull & the smell,there is nothing quite like it is there??? Not drought breaking but it watered the lawn

We have sheep & cattle,we are feeding our Rams atmLooks like we will start to push some scrub after Xmas David &I will be here by ourselves Xmas day as our children go to their inlaws this year,we had a big get together last year.

They will be out Boxing Day with the grand children & that is Davids birthday also

So I am sure we will have a great day,hope everyone else has an enjoyable time as well :cheers: Heather

Hi allHeather i am so happy to hear that you have had some rain and yes there is nothing quite like the smell....Once you have had some rain more is sure to follow, i am confident you will get some more soon.I hope that you all have a really nice Christmas, enjoy boxing day Heather and Happy Birthday to David, hope it rains for him. Look forward to hearing from you all soon and to hear what the man in the red suit got for you. :wave: :wave:

Merry Christmas Day to u all, still Christmas eve over here - how i hate this time difference generally, & with daylight saving particularly.Few posting unanswered but we r in the thick of it right now - venison orders for Christmas were mostly finished on Monday and all was going to plan, then smallgoods were to be ready Monday night - but alas no - they were really under the pump ( i truely felt sorry for them) - would be ready first thing Tues, - long story, but ended picking up at 5-30pm tonite so have been packing from 7 pm to now. Not really an ideal Christmas eve but thats life! Christmas day off, then 5 weeks with no break of schools holidays with the Park plus 5 Growers Market days & Dec quarter GST returns Goody u are right on the money I'm sure i'm too old for all this, but i said that last year!! If u retire properly Goody make sure u teach them how to grow that good C/oil for me to keep cooking my fish in!!!Great post Peto, i've got a few questions to ask on that one when we have time & i'm sure i've got some great articles on W.A. made Chamberlains around the office somewhere - in Feb i'll take & hour or 3 & hunt them down for u. Did u know about the other good tractor made here for a while called a Phillips "Acremaster" i think? Flame might know more about that one cos he is in the big,big big tractor area at Borden. Again i've got a 20 min video on that - & i'll have to find accidentially cos i've put it in a safe place!Happy Birthday for Boxing day David - the same day as my Dad's birthday! Great to here u at least got that lovely smell of rain Heather - lets hope Mcg's theory is right & u get some more Good luck Thirstydirt & Wizzer - i see that "cloud/potential rain" band hanging over the east there, but there was'nt much this side from the same pattern - we feel so bad (selfishly)worrying here that our feed doesnt get burnt cos theres been fires all over the place already & the riskiest 2 months yet to come, when so many of u have nothing to burn !Anyway if i dont get to bed Santa wont come i suppose & i think Mrs Santa is asleep already -

Our very best wishes to you all & your families - thanks so much for sharing the every day events that make us realise how lucky we really are over here on the coast this year, our greatest wish is for you all to be the same comfortable position as us this time next year...... :wave: FE

Merry christmas everyone...I hope you all have a good WET and safe christmas day. So far we have had 77 points(19mm) at home here and I think a bit more at The Head, so we are pretty happy. Just as well too, because the creek at The Head on Monday was just a tiny trickle-but the same afternoon we had around 25mm in a storm, so that would opened up the springs and got it flowing again.

FE, that would be really great if you could get a hand on that info for me, that would be very much appreciated. I haven't heard of the Phillips Acremaster though, prehaps they weren't too popular in Queensland.

Good to hear you finally got some moisture Heather, although you would probably like about 10 times that amount, but I suppose its something and maybe even a sign of good times to come!

FE, a great thread - thanks for starting it. I've nothing to add other than to say to all contributers keep it up. The news you are sending is wonderful to read, and I hope all the dry areas of Australia get a good soaking soon (not till March/April is my unfortunate forecast). Happy New Year to all.

Very cool cloudy morning here with just the mournfall sound of a solitary crow over by the ck. Tell you what it is going to hard to keep up with >>> all the Chewings of the straw here !

Peto glad to hear the rain will get that spring going for you ... Have a look at the Rising Water Tables to Predict Weather Forum & see what you think about what is said there re: What makes springs run etc as your family has lived at The Head for a long time ... you can maybe tell us what the history has been in this regard to droughts ? Incidently gang I put a thread in there the other day about how the pioneers sank wells

Peto I slipped up the other day on the Chamberlain tractor reply ... I have driven one of those & also the older 9 G ones . Yes they were great tractors for there time Watch the front wheel bearings though if you do much heavy loader work

FE you & lovely wife are very busy little vegemites over there are'nt you with those run up around the wall critters. Good luck with it all !

We have just spent the best day with our family& we have played spotlight,hide & go seek,tips,& danced to all the old rock & roll tunes.Our 9 year old grandson was the DJ & he knows the lotDavid has had the best day & said to thank you all for your kind wishes.The age range was from 52 to 7yrs today & we all have had a great time.This is what life is all about :cheers: Heather

Hi AllHope you had a really wonderful Christmas. I was spoiled rotten, as usual, and had a great day. I love all the effort and enjoy the company. We are not blessed with a large extended family so we had our own family and some very close friends over, 15 in all, and ate seafood and sat in the spa outside and drank. Everything Christmas and Boxing day should be, lots of good company and fun, a time to enjoy and leave the drought until tomorrow. Hope you all could take the time to unwind for just a day. FE i think you needed some elves to help on Christmas Eve. Did you get it all done? What did Santa bring you all, rain i hope!!!! We had a little rain on Christmas Eve, 4ml, and it just kept the green pick happening, greening up but need followup rain now. Heather, 'it may not happen overnight but it will happen', have you had anymore rain? Our cattle are finally startoing to look better, the young bulls that have benn on grain look fantastic since the rain, what a difference. Poddy calves are growing, looks like spring.....Take care all.